The Four-Day Work Week is The Future of 9 To 5

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For those of you who have felt a loathing for the 9 to 5, five-day work week (that could extend to six depending on the job), something good might be brewing for you!

Indeed the four-day work week (and for those who dream to extremes, maybe even less) has always been regarded as a something of a dream, an unreachable utopian fantasy, which the demands of capitalization foreclose!

But despair no more, statistics now show that the fantasy of a four-day work week might be feasible and even offer business benefits.

Earlier this year, a New Zealand company rolled out a four-day, 32-hour work week on a trial basis, and the results showed it was an overwhelming success. The New York Times reports that the 240 employees at trust management firm Perpetual Guardian achieved high productivity levels with a shorter workweek.

For two months, the company created an experimental job schedule where employees worked for four days, but still got paid for five. This increase in work efficiency came down to some factors. For starters, the two-month trial period showed that 24 percent of staff case studies pointed to a healthier work-life balance.

Chiefly, for these employees, spending more time with loved ones and engaging in pastimes/hobbies resulted in more workplace energy and positivity. Work productivity went northwards as staff arrived on time with better attendance and scheduled their workdays more effectively, including taking shorter breaks and having shorter meetings; essentially achieving more in less time.

The multiplier effects of the shorter workweek also extended to other categories of workers who might require assistance within or outside the office as well as employees on maternity or paternity leave.

Experts anticipate that these benefits are transferable to other developed areas of the world. The USA, for example, is in dire need of structural workplace amendments such as a four-day work week.

Investigations reveal that most Americans work more than 34 hours a week, with many adults reporting they work closer to 50 hours to stay afloat. Not only is this figure higher than what obtains in peer nations, but working Americans also experience a toll on their health, earnings, sense of wellbeing and relationships with friends/family.

Workers in the US sometimes support each other, where individuals donate vacation days so that co-workers can have decent maternity leave. The rigors of a five-day work week worsens with synergistic effects such as pay inequity, workplace harassment, and minimum wages that don’t measure up against the ever-rising cost of living.

Analysts believe that a four-day work week (with the benefit of a five-day pay) may provide the leeway in not only helping workers make ends meet but also staying always productive in the workplace.

Nowadays, a four-day workweek does sound like a dream: a logical, reasonable, and now attainable one.